Original new thesis which explores the history and politics of commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, their interactions with the state, and their contests for land and other resources. Using fresh archive and key informant sources, it provides a unique perspective on Zimbabwe’s much publicised land and race debates. Argues that the dismantling of the white farming sector disguised wider political contest and provided a source of land and assets for the ruling ZANU PF with which to placate its elaborate and increasingly militarised patronage system.

PhD thesis, University of Oxford

Covers farming, personal and demographic data in the sample areas, working conditions, minimum wages, ownership of livestock and tenure rights, living conditions, human and labour relations, occupational health and safety, HIV/AIDS, conclusions and recommendations. Key research questions included the impact of the 2003 minimum wage legislation on living standards and employment levels, health and safety issues, land use rights and gender-based differences in employment conditions. Almost all farm workers are employed on a full-time basis and over a quarter of those surveyed had been in their current employment for over 6 years. Labour relations are far better on black-owned than on white-owned commercial farms, where a master-servant mentality still persists and many workers are in debt to the farm shops.

Covers analysis of the study sites in Seke, Buhera, Chimanimani and Bulawayo Districts, land and property rights of widows and other vulnerable women in those sites, livelihood strategies, obstacles and options, policy issues and recommendations. The study highlights the vulnerability of widows to property-rights violations.

The triple threat is of HIV/AIDS, food insecurity, and weakening capacity for service delivery in Southern Africa. The Mozambique paper focuses on livelihood security in Manica Province, space for social protection, using political capital to facilitate development, the Mozambique Land Law – an opportunity for sustainable livelihoods, supporting livelihoods – new approaches, treatment – the backbone of addressing AIDS, credit savings, and economic empowerment of women.

Contains situational analysis, policy context, tentative conclusions and options for intervention. Addresses the question of how to increase security of land rights for the urban and rural poor. Examines the existing multiple land tenure system. Argues that land reform in Sierra Leone is both necessary and possible though there are many constraints. The costs of doing nothing will likely include further civil unrest and environmental degradation.

A wide-ranging valedictory lecture by the veteran radical land guru. Offers glimpses of the role of law in Tanzania’s jump from the frying pan of state nationalism into the fire of corporate neoliberalism. Argues that the creation of ‘free’ labour and of land as capital were central to the colonial project. Examines the changing status of customary titles and the series of Land Acts from 1999. Argues that De Soto’s current Mkurabita project will in effect mean registering large chunks of village land in preparation for their alienation through force, fraud, and corruption. Concludes by arguing that the legal elite is involved in facilitating the commodification of land, water, energy, and traditional medicinal plants, and in drafting intellectual property laws to protect modified seeds and medicines looted from peasants and pastoralists.

Valedictory lecture on Issa G. Shivji’s formal retirement.

A serious study of a neglected field, drawing on research, workshops, and personal and organisational testimonies. Covers Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Aims to raise awareness of the heavy impact of HIV and AIDS on women’s property rights and livelihoods, and the active steps being taken by many grassroots organisations to respond to the crisis. Looks at a number of creative initiatives such as the Memory Book Project in Uganda.

Contains introduction: property rights, inheritance, and HIV; the impact on development; challenging the roots of the problem; modern laws and individual rights: do they always support women?; pinpointing the difficulties with the existing legal frameworks; ways forward.

A detailed study of the rationale behind farm-worker evictions and their effects on farm-worker communities in a country where there is currently no legislation protecting tenure rights. Looks at common-law evictions, District Labour Courts and their phasing out, at data extracted from court rolls, reasons for filing complaints, and at drafting legislation for Namibia. Concludes with recommendations.

Contains sections on challenges facing the implementation of the Forest Act 2005; the new Forest Act and community involvement; CSOs and the new Act; forest evictions and excision – views of a section of stakeholders; Likia forest evictees – a forgotten lot; the Maasai Mau Forest – a story of confusion and desperation; excision of forest lands by Government continues; what is the true status of the draft National Land Policy?

Contains review of land policy formulation and implementation, land tenure challenges and activities in poverty reduction programmes and projects, stakeholder perspectives, lessons learned for mainstreaming land tenure security in poverty reduction.

Based on experiences gained by the 3 authors through previous research activities and assignments in different parts of Africa and reading of existing literature. Identifies and discusses what is seen as being the most important issues in the ongoing debate about African land rights and land conflicts. Presents and discusses various policy approaches being adopted on the continent to solve land tenure problems and related conflicts.

Workshop report draws on a larger research report examining the massively changed context for livestock policy following fast track land reform. Themes discussed were production, grazing, fodder and drought responses, marketing, livestock disease and veterinary services.

Discusses controversies generated by recent South African legislation (the Communal Land Rights Act), shows how these echo debates in the wider African context, and explores potential solutions to reform of ‘customary’ land tenure regimes. Argues that the most appropriate approach to tenure reform is to make socially legitimate occupation and use rights the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional contexts for mediating competing claims and administering land. Legal frameworks should vest land rights in the people who occupy and use land, not in groups or institutions, while recognising that these rights are shared and relative within a variety of nested social units.

Keynote address at international symposium on ‘At the frontier of land issues: social embeddedness of rights and public policy’, Montpellier, France

Provides an overview of key political, economic and strategic policy development options for the consolidation of land tenure policies and strengthened property rights and tenure security in Zimbabwe following land reform.

Baseline survey which includes a literature review. Findings cover land and livelihoods, land ownership and security of tenure, land rights and decision making, land market and transactions, land disputes. Concludes that the volume of land transactions is too low to support a transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture, as planned. Smallholder farmers have limited capital options making increased land utilization impossible. Tenure security for women is still far from a reality. There is a need to strengthen land rights of widows and orphans.

The focus is on management and use of wetlands in Kenya. Coverage includes their role in poverty reduction, Lake Naivasha, Yala, the Nzoia River Basin, and the need for securing wetlands as common property resources. Argues that secure access to wetlands for poor rural communities is fundamental to improving their livelihoods.

The focus of the workshop, funded by FAO, Oxfam GB, and Women Land Link Africa Project (WLLA), was on children’s property rights. The report covers presentations by children, key issues and inspiring initiatives by CBOs, messages from the UN to children, experiences from Zimbabwe, very moving testimonies by children, key recommendations. Following the launch of a UNICEF and UNAIDS global campaign, FAO has been initiating work in the neglected area of children’s property and inheritance rights. The development of child-friendly tools, documenting best practice, and sensitizing the public were stressed during the workshop.

Contains women’s rights and state-led agrarian and market based land reforms; reinstating the state; engendering customary tenure; rights of indigenous people and marginalised groups; human rights violations; HIV/AIDS; the ‘feminisation of agriculture’. Calls for a new agrarian reform agenda in which the state plays a central role, ensuring that land is established as a common public good, and that its benefits are enjoyed equitably by women and men, regardless of race, class or ethnicity. Need for open and inclusive processes, with priority given to the voices of women from excluded communities and other historically marginalised groups.

Collection of 12 short policy briefs arising from collaborative work between CGIAR, UNDP’s Drylands Development Center and the International Land Coalition.
1) Land Tenure, Land Reform, and the Management of Land and Natural Resources in Africa, by Joan Kagwanja;
2) Legal Dualism and Land Policy in Eastern and Southern Africa, by Martin Adams and Stephen Turner;
3) Legal Pluralism as a Policy Option: Is it Desirable? Is it Doable?, by Patrick McAuslan;
4) Gender Issues in Land Tenure under Customary Law, by Patricia Kameri-Mbote;
5) Innovations in Land Tenure, Reform and Administration in Africa, by Clarissa Augustinus and Klaus Deininger;
6) The Commons and Customary Law in Modern Times: Rethinking the Orthodoxies, by Liz Alden Wily;
7) Biting the Bullet: How to Secure Access to Drylands Resources for Multiple Users, by Esther Mwangi and Stephen Dohrn;
8) Decentralization: An Enabling Policy for Local Land Management, by Hubert Ouedraogo; 9) Will Formalizing Property Rights Reduce Poverty in South Africa’s “Second Economy?” – Questioning Mythologies of Hernando de Soto, by Ben Cousins et al;
10) Getting the Process Right: The Experience of the Uganda Land Alliance, by Oscar Okech and Harriet Busingye;
11) Getting Agreement on Land Tenure Reform: the Case of Zambia, by Joseph Mbinji;
12) The Land Policy Process in Burkina Faso: Building a National Consensus, by Hubert Ouedraogo.

The workshop was held in Lusaka as part of FAO’s initiative in the area of women’s property rights in the context of HIV and AIDS. Report covers legal issues of, and lessons on, women’s land and property rights in Zambia; Theresa Chilala’s case; testimonies by widows and orphans in Zambia; successful interventions to protect women’s property rights by authorities � lessons from the region; inspiring initiatives by women and grassroots groups; key recommendations; working group deliberations; press release; opening and closing speeches; strategic framework.

Collection of stories of poor women in Kibaale, Luweero, Kapchorwa, Apac, Mbale and Kampala districts about their struggles in securing their rights to land. Contains overview of land issues in Uganda. Topics include land access through marriage, inheritance, the land market, land reform processes, NGO donations and support, urban women and access to land, what needs to be done – recommendations to government.

Case study includes conceptual framework, rationale for land reform in Rwanda, assessment of choices, implementation. Highlights from the thematic dialogue include discussions on participation, decision making for optimal land use, land and the rural-urban interface and livelihoods, lessons learned and challenges. Third part examines possibilities for future co-operation.

Presented at the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 7-10 March 2006

Paper targeted at land reform practitioners and stakeholders in government and civil society. Argues that land reform can broadly be divided into land tenure reform and land redistribution. First chapter gives short narrative of key land tenure and land policy issues. These remain politically sensitive, but consensus is emerging on how to deal with them once confusion surrounding private /common property and formal / informal rights is cleared up. Secure property rights should not be confused with full private ’ownership’. The introduction of private title in situations where favourable economic conditions do not exist can be a waste of effort. Second chapter addresses redistribution of property rights from large to small farmers. There is heightened urgency on the need to address this, especially in Southern Africa, but controversy exists on appropriate implementation mechanisms which, combined with the sensitive political nature of land reform, often results in costly inaction. Highlights case of South Africa, because success there would have tremendous regional and international implications for land redistribution. A policy framework for redistributive land reform is outlined within which competing paradigms compete on the ground. Believes major land redistribution can be implemented peacefully, that history need not repeat itself.

Explores some dimensions of an international NGO seeking to work globally on land rights. Draws upon the author’s own work as well as Oxfam’s historical experiences. The first part looks at some of Oxfam’s recent work on land rights, at the involvement of DFID on land rights in Africa, at Oxfam’s engagement with the World Bank, and a brief word on USAID. The second part examines some of Oxfam’s work on land rights over the past two decades in Southern Africa – in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Angola. There are concluding thoughts at the end of each section.

International Conference on Social Movements Perspectives: Land, Poverty, Social Justice and Development, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague

Recent UNRISD research finds that the new generation of land tenure reforms introduced in the 19990s is not necessarily more gender equitable than earlier efforts, even though women’s ability to gain independent access to land is increasingly on the statutes. Includes the potential and limitations of the law; the limits of ‘market-friendly’ land reform; decentralization and devolution: finding justice ‘closer to home’?; divisions within civil society and the difficulties of building alliances; land is not a ‘magic bullet’; rethinking the agrarian household: shared and separate interests; implications for policy and research.

Chapters include the land question, land policy issues, constitutional reform, land reform issues, land use management principles, land administration, land issues requiring special intervention, institutional framework, support agencies, land policy implementation framework, proposed organizational structure. This draft contains numerous corrections to the text, but the policy making process appears to have become stalled in the current crises. It has recently been made public thanks to the assertiveness of the Kenya Land Alliance.

A second volume in this series covering this region, building on that of August 2004. Designed to be useful for planners, programme designers, advocates, practitioners, citizens and subjects engaged in land reform. Contains an introduction, followed by land reform highlights in Burundi, Eastern DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Following introductory historical sections, paper focuses on the impact of land-market reform at the village level – including the extent of conversions, conversions for elites, land speculation, displacement, enclosures, conflict and resistance – and on the (mal)administration of land. Concludes that the benefits of market-based land reform have accrued to local elites and outside investors. Land administration has proved highly malleable and is subject to perversion by local elites, traditional rulers, outside investors, and government officials. Donors bear some responsibility for this.

Includes key features of current land policy, land law implementation – recording local rights, registering customarily held rights, knowing your rights, the public sector response, private sector and other non-customary land rights, historical land units, land concentration, benefits to local people – community consultations, the positive side of the picture. Argues that an historic opportunity is in danger of being lost to use the Land Law to implement a process of rural transformation with a controlled enclosure process that brings social benefits and generates an equitable and sustainable outcome for all those involved.

Paper presented to the International Conference on The Changing Politics of Land in Africa: domestic policies, crisis management, and regional norms, University of Pretoria.

Legal processes can help improve the lives of the poor in developing countries e.g. through establishing fair rules on international trade and securing land access in rural Africa. For this to happen, poorer actors – whether individuals or states – must have equitable access to the legal system, including a fair say in law-making processes, and access to effective enforcement institutions. Development agencies should take law seriously and support local, national and international processes that improve legal access and make law work for the poor – including law reform, litigation, training, legal assistance and advocacy.

Covers land-tenure system in Amhara Region, the land rights registration process, women’s access to and control of land, land use by men and women, marital property rights, inheritance rights, female-headed households, legal services, conclusions and recommendations.

Focuses on the situation of farm workers after the fast-track land resettlement programme, including issues of housing and tenure security. Includes presentations from GAPWUZ, FCTZ, and some researchers, and a report of the discussions. Annexes contain full presentations. Recommendations include that under-utilised land be made available to farm workers. The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture has since asked FCTZ to facilitate public hearings on the issue in January 2006.

This extract from the book Terra contains the contents page, introduction, and executive summary of the whole book, and chapters 10 and 11 on land policy in Angola. The book presents research on post-war urban land management options and the use of action research as an advocacy tool in drafting the 2004 Land Law. Chapter 10, on land policy and land legislation, covers the legal background, a chronology of Angolan laws and the legal revision process, the draft land law, specific recommendations on intermediate and evolutive rights. Chapter 11, on action research as an advocacy tool to influence Angola’s land policies, covers the background, the need and focus for research, disseminating the findings, land firmly on the agenda, lessons learned.

Country analysis and recommendations for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Viet Nam. Analyzes the de jure and customary discriminations faced by women in terms of land access in these 10 countries. Each country study starts with a data box, followed by a Rural Women Profile, a summary of women’s constitutional rights and the national legislation, an examination of customary systems in place, identification of the main constraints to women’s access to land, a set of recommendations, and the status of ratifications of relevant major international treaties. Hopes to provide a base from which future work to give women a stronger voice in household, local and national decisions should be formulated. Need to begin work at the bottom by giving women a voice for expressing their needs and hopes in terms of land.

Documents the history of evictions of rural dwellers based on a comprehensive survey of people displaced from South African farms between 1984-2004. Content includes methodology and objectives of the study, the scale of evictions, perspectives from commercial farmers, the impact of evictions on the livelihoods of farm dwellers, local impact, aspirations of evictees, possible interventions.

Looks at land tax, land expropriation, foreign ownership, the National Resettlement Programme and the Affirmative Action Loan Scheme, case studies, and donor support in the land-reform process. Concludes with recommendations on expropriation, farm workers, sustainability of resettlement projects, gender issues, skills sharing and training.

Review of the situation of land rights in Apac District and of opportunities for land rights protection work. Examines the 1998 Land Act and its implementation in practice. Finds that the protection clauses for women are proving ineffective. Also looks at the major threats and barriers to land rights and suggests ways forward. Among many other pertinent questions, asks why the Ugandan Government has shown so little interest in customary tenure and why it pursues land titling to the extent it does. Argues that state institutions are not functioning as prescribed and have not been equipped to deal with land disputes. Landlessness is growing and it is proving harder for people to defend their land rights.

Covers orphans in Africa; the problem of guardianship; the Rwandan setting; post-war situation of orphans; children and the law(s); orphans’ efforts to assert land rights – land dispute cases; rethinking care giving for orphans. The 1994 genocide, combined with the impacts of HIV/AIDS, created 300,000 orphans in Rwanda. Many are heads of households who urgently need land-use rights, but a weakened system of guardianship and increasing pressures on land often prevent this. Traditional support systems for Africa’s 34 million orphans (including 11 million ‘AIDS orphans’) have weakened over the years. The situation is particularly acute in Rwanda, where even before the genocide land pressures and poverty meant that many families were competing for land. Orphans experience many practical barriers, including lack of information, status, and few financial resources to defend their land rights. Makes a series of recommendations to the Rwandan government, including formulating and enforcing land laws specifically catering to orphans’ rights and designing national land-development programmes with the full participation of orphans.

An in-depth and far-reaching ‘think-piece’ commissioned by ‘but not necessarily reflecting the views of’ DFID. The focus is on Africa and South and South-East Asia, and on land registration and titling, and decentralisation of land administration systems. Draws attention to the effects of land policy for the poor, arguing that land rights are often instruments in local politics and power relations. Highlights local processes of differentiation and examines how relationships between land, livelihoods, and poverty are changing in the current context of rapid rural-urban change and ‘de-agrarianisation’. Asks what entry-points there are for pro-poor change in and through land policy and administration. Situates land policy historically and in the wider development context and sets out a way of approaching contemporary land issues from a pro-poor perspective. Offers practical recommendations to DFID’s continuing involvement with land policy formulation and implementation.

Part of the ongoing process of producing a National Land Policy and the product of research and consultation by 6 thematic groups. Report includes country framework and wide range of policy issues and recommendations included within rural land use, environment and informal sector; urban land environment and informal sector; land tenure and socio-cultural equity; land information management systems; legal, institutional and financing framework.

A guide to a report from the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department which is likely to prove extremely helpful to practitioners. The structure of the report is first given in detail to illustrate its coverage. This is followed by a section which gathers together some of its contents and conclusions, interspersed with comments. This is done under 8 headings: the need for gender-disaggregated information; acknowledging regional differences; trusting the customary?; gender dimensions in land administration; cultural constraints; the power of regulations; adjudication; knowing your rights, education and training.

The paper explores whether the post-Cold War rule of law reform agenda in sub-Saharan Africa has enhanced or impeded gender equity. Argues that a large part of the gender equality agenda remains unaddressed by the legal and institutional reforms undertaken so far. The section on reforms to property laws suggests that they have at worst deepened gender inequality and at best left biases intact. Official discussion of gender and land tenure remains disconnected from broader processes of economic restructuring. Financial sector reforms have not been co-ordinated with reform of land and family legislation and practice, yet land and family law are at the heart of women’s ability to access financial services.

Revisits Zimbabwe’s land question 5 years after the launching of the ‘fast-track’ land redistribution programme which has created a new paradigm, the consequences of which will take many years to work through the country’s political, economic, and social fabric. Briefly defines old and new versions of Zimbabwe’s land question before outlining salient aspects of the reform process. Assesses the outcomes of the redistribution, the apparent lacuna between land and agrarian reform, and the debate the reform process has kindled. Makes recommendations on what is necessary to secure land and agrarian reform in the short, medium, and long term.

Report divided into 5 themes: legal issuers of women’s rights to land and property in Namibia; traditional institutions on women’s land and property rights; HIV/AIDS, land and property rights, and livelihood strategies; Namibian experiences; regional experiences (Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe). 6 group discussions on: sensitisation and paralegal training; legal and policy reforms to secure women’s rights to movable and immovable property; establishment of local institutions and mechanisms to protect and strengthen women’s land and property rights; HIV/AIDS and women’s land and property rights and livelihood; potential projects and programmes for food security and livelihood strategies; specific support to orphans and other vulnerable children.

Jose Negrao died on 9 July 2005, aged 49. He was one of the most important intellectuals and researchers in Mozambique, was a leading figure in the Land Campaign and a strong defender of peasant land rights. We publish this interview with him in recognition of and in mourning a great and truly independent fighter who did not conform to what others expected but always pursued his own way. He was hugely influential during the Land Campaign and his success then derived from the fact that people trusted his integrity and his independence. He was greatly appreciated right across Southern Africa and did much to interpret Mozambique to its English speaking neighbours. He was also great fun to be with. He will be deeply missed and his death is a huge loss to Mozambique. The interview questions asked here are: How did you get involved with the Land Law? How was the Land Law disseminated? Were there many obstacles? What are some of the other benefits of the Land Law?

Provides an overview of different forms of shared tenure, whether between husband and wife, stable partners, extended families, women’s groups or communities. Analyses to what extent they are beneficial to women. Includes a preliminary examination of the impact of shared tenure on women’s effective land and housing rights, on women’s access to credit and on domestic violence. Seeks to contribute to the development of tools and strategies towards women’s security of tenure. The findings will be used as a basis for further research and analysis, particularly with regard to urban, informal shared forms of tenure.

Includes recent political and policy developments, research findings and conclusions, a wider national picture, changing the discourse, a challenge to the private sector, South Africa faces a choice. Argues that South Africa’s current land reform model is largely informed by an outmoded vision of the role of agriculture and the rural areas in South African society, so is overloaded with expectations it cannot fulfil. Land reform is now predominantly an urban challenge.

A critique of the CDE report, Land Reform in South Africa, which, the author claims, underestimates the potential of smallholder agriculture in a country with a large domestic market for food products. Far too much is claimed in the report for the private sector and agribusiness. Government needs new and better conceived policies. Insists that rural land reform remains an urgent priority for South Africa as does tenure reform in urban and peri-urban areas. There is need for an integrated rural and urban approach.

Subtitled ‘an analysis of the tenure context and a problem statement for Leap.’ Comprises (i) context – current analyses of tenure, the South African context, tenure security and vulnerability; (ii) multiple tenure arrangements in South Africa – customary tenure arrangements, Registration of Deeds system, local and off register tenure arrangements in rural and urban areas, transitional tenure arrangements; (iii) problem statements – multiple tenure arrangements, vulnerability and tenure; (iv) points of departure for phase 4 – understanding, recognition and integration, vulnerability. Contains an innovative executive summary and a useful bibliography.